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Europe-wide action against the EU Migration Pact during the next week

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09 November 2020

A week of action against the EU's new Pact on Migration and Asylum is taking place this week, led by the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal on Violations of the Rights of Migrant and Refugee People and Europe Must Act. The groups are calling for a Global Solidarity Pact in place of the EU's Migration Pact, to halt the criminalisation of migrants and to ensured the rights and dignity of all people. Due to the pandemic, most actions will take place online, but some 'real-life' activities are planned.

Europe-wide action against the EU Migration Pact during the next week (Migrant Tribunal, link):

"The week beginning 9th November will see the launch of two campaigning initiatives directed against the new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum."

See: Let us Build a Global Pact of Solidarity for the Rights of Migrant and Refugee Peoples (pdf, emphasis added)

"The Europe and the Future we want – Europe of Equality and Solidarity

We have seen Europe’s migration policy of exclusion and death being constructed year after year. We have also seen right-wing populist and racist ideas becoming more and more socially acceptable all over Europe. We constantly hear about the deadly consequences of these policies and of appalling human rights violations.

Now, in the face of the continued closure of European borders, externalisation of migration policies, the restrictions on freedom of movement that cause systematic violations of the human rights of people throughout their migratory journeys - on the roads, in the desserts, on the seas and also within Europe - and in response to the criminalisation of citizens in solidarity, we, migrant and refugee peoples, social movements and associations of civil society organisations from many parts of Europe say Enough is Enough!

We no longer accept these Pacts that dehumanise populations and systematically exclude migrants and refugees – while at the same time relying and benefitting from their their work without rights. Thus, a generalised and comprehensive regularisation of all migrant and refugee peoples in the EU and all European countries is essential and urgent so that they can finally exercise their labour, social and health rights, for their own benefit and that of society as a whole.

We will not tolerate that fellow human beings - asylum seekers and migrant peoples - are hunted, locked up in detention centres and in refugee camps deprived of all rights, subjected to racist brutality, and reduced to non-persons. We demand the same European leaders who delivered this Pact, to implement the immediate release of all migrants from those political prisons and the evacuation and closure of all camps, as well as the urgent transfer to the European cities and towns that have declared themselves ready to receive them.

An alternative migration and asylum policy is possible – but it requires moral courage and a people based genuinely democratic politics. It must also be matched with a new economics and vision that places the wellbeing of people and the planet before profit."